General Chat

Been in the garden again. I have pegged downabout eight new Strawberry plants, weeded pots of plants, repotted a Heuchera and my Cafelandra ?, fed the beans dos'nt sound a lot but I have been out there at least an hour and a half. Its lovely and cool out there.

Ah well I love seafood, not keen on mussels although many of those are farmed I think and less likely to feed on sewage. Prawns, scampi, crab, lobster.

Strangely you can catch norovirus from lettuce leaves..

I think if we worried about all the bugs we could catch we would starve.. salmonella from eggs goodness knows what from chicken etc etc.

I had tuns for lunch and taramasalata on crackers. Tonight is a ready meal of steak ragu.

Those of you that are growing Mel's saved tomato seed are unlikely to get the same tomatoes from your plants as I tried to explain before. You need to cover the flowers where you want to save seed from the tomatoes so no insects can get in to pollinate them before they open. Then when they have pollen, take the polythene bags off and pollinate them from other covered flowers with a paintbrush and cover them again till you see the tiny tomatoes appearing to grow. Any seed you then save from those tomatoes and plant the following year should all bear tomatoes the same as the parent plant. If you leave the flowers uncovered the insects will bring pollen from other different kinds of tomato plants in the surrounding area and pollinate yours, so those resulting tomatoes will produce a variety of crossbred seeds for the next year then. It's the same with my Antirryhinums. I started with a tray of red ones and a tray of yellow ones, didn't try to save any seed, but now the ones that self set each year are all sorts of colours, some very drab, some more than one colour and another a pretty orange colour.

Afternoon All,

Phew it's hotting up again, 25 degrees now and a bit humid. I've had a couple of busy days, cleaning the workmens fingermarks from inside the original wall cabinet then cutting plastic sheets from Ikea that I used to line the shelves of the new cabinets as it's easier to lift out and clean, then putting everything back into the cabinets. I had a look at the toilets with the bathroom in mind at the shop as we want one with steep insides to do a more thorough job when you flush (apologies if you are eating)! It's useful to know what I was told though as manufacturers can now only make toilets that have a 6 litre flush instead of a 12 litre flush in order to save water, so are engineering the insides of toilets differently. I don't see how it saves water if it causes you to flush more than once though.

OH had his final cardio assessment yesterday and walked briskly an extra 500 metres in the time than the first time when he started the course. He said his pulse hardly increased and he had no breathlessness. The nurse is pleased with him and his diet and walking. They would normally refer him to a course at the gym next, but want to wait till he starts to get treatment first as he is unable to do some of the arm exercise involving his neck and back yet.

Your trip out to the garden sounded good AnnG and I would have enjoyed your flatbread lunch. The U3a talk sounded interesting and I didn't know there were kings buried in Gloucester. It's a bit of an art with a talk to include enough of interest but not make it too long.

Vera I think my last email must be in your spam. It is of the rain we had yesterday. Re shellfish I've never fancied them although I confess I do have scampi sometimes. Like Mel I don't like fish pie either. Also we don't always know where they have come from and what also put me off was reading that they can have bacteria like salmonella, norovirus and other harmful things like tapeworm eggs, particularly mussles. The farm shop sounded good and you got well stocked up there. I like the name of the jam! Generous portions in the restauant too. I prefer the local meat at our farm shop.

I hope all of those bites are itching less Mandy. I've not heard of that bite stuff you used before. It's hot where you are today. Yes I wondered what would happen to the front of those stick out dresses when you sat down. I remember the stiff net petticoats I had one of as a teenager would lift at the front as I sat down so I had to hold it down with my arms.

Your toms and cues have soon grown Mel. I wonder what the toms will all be like. Yes leave the ironing for now. At least we haven't had to water today.

I hve dead headed the patio plants this morning and fed the chickens and cleaned out their nest box but not the house as its really warm now but not as warm as you lot have had its only 20 degrees here and the suns just gone in. I looked at my ironing this morning and walked away. Watered the sweet peas in the big tub and wound the long beans round their supports and fed the toms, cue and beans and the short beans.

The squirrels are in the Hazel tree already and dropping all the husks on the floor so they'll need sweeping up and I must water the beans down the garden under the Hazel tree.

25 degrees here, still humid but there is a slight breeze, no sun.

It’s the same here Mandy. I did get my ironing done soon after 9 am but I couldn’t see what I was ironing anyway because I had all the blinds closed. I then spent half an hour in the garden on deadheading and easy jobs and planned to come in and vac through downstairs. That didn’t get done as it was becoming too hot and humid so since then I’ve just been blobbing about. Looking forward to some rain tomorrow if the forecast is right.

Phew to hot here for ironing and hoovering it's 28 degrees and so humid just moving makes you hot ,I did get the feeding done before it got to hot but the ironing can wait there's nothing in the pile that we really want .

Bathroom and cloakroom done so that is the H/W for this week.

Just dusted and vacuumed the lounge and dining room, gave the kitchen surfaces a wipe and now thinking about doing the bathroom and cloakroom. 21 degrees and again very humid.

Morning all,

We had some rain in the night as there are puddles ,I had the bedroom window open as it was so muggy but I never heard any rain ,this morning when we got up it was sunny but its now clouded over a bit ,might be in for a few thunder storms over the weekend .

I must have a hoover through today do some ironing as the pile is getting bigger and feed the cues and toms , so that will fill my morning .

I have a load of washing in and have watered the tomatoes and also done a bit of Admin on the PC. Now better have breakfast.

I still can't get into my card games I play each morning with my coffee.

Morning girls,

17 degrees here and pc is still telling me expect 1 to 2cm of rain on Sunday. It grey and overcast today not even a glimmer of blue sky.

Nothing planned for today so I suppose it will be a little more housework, ugh........... need to finish the hall and do the big bathroom and wash my hair so I think thats quite enough for today.

Good morning

It was a sticky night and it’s promising to be a hot, muggy day. BBC Weather is telling me it’s already 21 degrees and feeling like 25. It’s supposed to get to 29 again later and I am sure it will feel even hotter.

I haven’t made any plans for the day. There are things to be done but I will just do what I can manage in the heat. Neighbour is away and we have to water her garden as well as ours so that takes time.

Stay cool, keep hydrated and enjoy your day.

Good morning all. when I went to bed it was 21 degrees so I thought I was in for a hot night. (that woulld have had such a different meaning many years ago!)
As it happened I went to sleep quite quickly and had a fairly good nights sleep , waking early before 6am and getting up a couple of times. It is only 17 degrees now, suny with some cloud and still dry.

I don't have any plans for today, if it stays not so hot/humid I will do some housework and hopefully a bit of tidying in the garden. yesterday evening I did go out and pull down some of the perennial sweet peas which had finished flowering, I could do with getting the rest of it. It will be brown bin day on tuesday.

Well it was Primark that is why cheap but it is all well made and doesn’t look cheap.

Still no rain here, not sure what the temp is it is a bit muggy but not as bad as before

Gosh Anng that was a real bargain.

Stu's just gone after a nice Kelly's icecream for dessert in a waffle cone. I did bubble and squeak, sausages, carrots, broccoli and an egg and it went down very well. He came down on his electric byke.

I am so full up I can hardly move!.

Hope you all sleep ok tonight its a bit muggy here after the fine rain today but it has wet the earth so the plants will like it.

Goodness Vera that was a burst of energy. Good coffee that.

Yes my tomatoes are all outside but I have had enough to keep me going so far, quite a lot of the sun gold.

I did go to town it was dark and looked like rain and was a bit chilly so I wore a light jacket which was in my carrier bag by the time I got the bus home. I did get a pair of shorts and a camisole. Both really cheap tried them on at home and they are very well made and fit well. I thought if we had more hot weather they would be good. Camisole was £2, and shorts were £3. I couldn’t believe it.

My tomatoes are very behind this year even though I sowed the seeds and they germinated early. Mine are all outside and we usually do well with them but not this year. We have a few toms coming but they are still small and green. OH is looking after them now and I know he is watering and feeding with tomorite. At this rate they won't ripen before the first frosts come.

The little nearly dead 50p fuschia I bought yesterday seems to be responding to being repotted in fresh compost and soaked. It's perked up quite a bit already.

This week seems to be rushing by. I did a bit of general tidying first thing and then we went to our Thursday coffee meet-up. We didn't get back from there till 1.30 but since then I've got towels all washed and they are now going round the dryer, we've had a bit of lunch and I've prepared tonight's meal, tidied the freezer a bit so that I can find things and done a bit of admin.

It's very grey and overcast but hot and muggy. It feels like a storm should break at any minute but we are not promised any thunder or rain until Saturday.

I'm now going on to the book thread to put an abbreviated version of a long post I did yesterday which disappeared just as I was going to press submit. I am beginning to think there must be a parallel universe somewhere gathering up all our lost posts, lol.